Individualism as reflected on the characteristic of crusoe in Daniel Defoe`s Robinson Crusoe - USD Repository

  INDIVIDUALISM AS REFLECTED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CRUSOE IN DANIEL DEFOE’S ROBINSON CRUSOE AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

  Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

  By

  RISSAKSANA

  Student Number: 044214021

  

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2011

  INDIVIDUALISM AS REFLECTED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CRUSOE IN DANIEL DEFOE’S ROBINSON CRUSOE AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

  Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

  By

  RISSAKSANA

  Student Number: 044214021

  

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2011

  

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

  

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

  

It is not I who doeth the works, but The Father

who dwells in me, He doeth the works.

  PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

  To all of the people who always support me PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIK

  Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Rissaksana NIM : 041224028

  Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

  

INDIVIDUALISM AS REFLECTED ON THE CHARACTERISTICS

OF CRUSOE IN DANIEL DEFOE’S ROBINSON CRUSOE

  Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikannya secara terbatas dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis. Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal 28 September 2011 Yang menyatakan, Rissaksana PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First of all I want to thank The One Who Makes All the Things Possible: the God Almighty. His guidance is proved to be very useful when I faced the obstacles along the completing of the work. I am very grateful for the unlimited inspirations You gave me. I would also give my thanks to my parents especially my mother for the never ending support. Without that, I surely cannot complete this thesis.

  My deepest thank is also given to my advisor Elisa Dwi Wardani, S.S, M.Hum for the patience in guiding me until finally my thesis is finished. Thank you very much, ma’am! I also would like to thank the second advisor for this thesis M. Luluk Artika W, S.S. Your unlimited patience is helping me very much, ma’am. Thank you. A great thank will also be given to Drs. Hirmawan Widjanarka, M.Hum, the Head of the Department of English Letters, for letting me take the KRS and “perpanjangan semester”, although it was actually late.

  Thank you Sir, for your hospitality facing the “angkatan tua” student like me.

  I would also like to give my thanks for my friends in Etawa Jazz community for their great support and guide. Thank you friends, for letting me join the jazz community. God jazz us, man!

  Finally, I would like to say thank for all the elements and persons who support me during this thesis completion process. God bless you all! Rissaksana

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ……………………………………………………………... i

APPROVAL PAGE ……………………………………………………... ii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE ………………………………………………....... iii

MOTTO PAGE …………………………………………………………….. iv

DEDICATION PAGE ……………………………………………………… v

HALAMAN PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI .................. vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……………………………………………… vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………... viii

ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………. ix

ABSTRAK …………………………………………………………………. x

CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION ………………………………………

  1 A. Background of the Study ………………………………………..

  1 B. Problem Formulation ……………………………………………

  6 C. Objectives of the Study …………………………………………

  6 D. Definition of Terms ……………………………………………..

  6 CHAPTER II : THEORETICAL REVIEW …………………………….

  7 A. Review of Related Studies ………………………………………

  7 B. Review of Related Theories …………………………………….

  11 C. Theoretical Framework ………………………………………….

  18 CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY …………………………………...

  A. Object of the Study ……………………………………………..

  19 B. Approach of the Study …………………………………………..

  20 C. Method of the Study ……………………………………………

  21 CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS …………………………………………...

  23 A. The Description of the Characteristics of Robinson Crusoe ……..

  23 B. Reflected Individualism Upon Crusoe’s Characteristics …………

  37 CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION ………………………………………...

  51 BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………

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ABSTRACT

  RISSAKSANA. Individualism as Reflected on the Characteristics of Crusoe

  

in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters,

  Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2011.   The term ‘individualism’ has become widely popular since the rise of

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  Capitalism on 17 century, when England gained its golden age along with the Industrial Revolution era. It is considered to be unique because it actually has planted in the deepest grove of every human’s subconscious, so it is to say that every single person has the tendency to be an individualist. We often refer it as egoism. The rise of individualism also affected several author of the best seller book at that time, such as Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Robinson Crusoe. Each of the novels mentioned contains the strong influence of individualism. Seeing this fact, then the writer was encouraged to know more about the effect of the individualism to those literary works, and made a research from one of the famous books—it is the Robinson Crusoe.

  From this research, finally the writer revealed the two objectives of making this study. They are (1) to find out how the character of Robinson Crusoe was described and (2) is to define individualism in the each characteristic of the main character of the novel studied.

  In doing this research, several steps were taken. Reading and understanding the novel in details were the first step taken by the writer. The next step was deciding the topic and choose the approach to be used to analyze the problem. Problem formulations were conducted after the topic has been decided. Then the writer began to analyze the novel using the adequate theories and sources to find the answer of the two problem formulations.

  After studying the novel thoroughly, finally the writer found that there are three major characteristics of the main character, and that answered the first problem. For the second problem, the writer also got the adequate results: there is strong individualism motive contained in each characteristic of the main character, and each individualism motive led to one main cause: the dominant ego that has planted in the subconscious mind of the main character, for the ego and individualism are closely related on each other. The writer also successfully proved that all of the major characteristics of the main character that has been studied are the result of the strong needs of that dominant ego. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ABSTRAK

  RISSAKSANA. Individualism as Reflected on the Characteristics of Crusoe

  

in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris,

Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2011.

  Istilah ‘individualisme’ menjadi sangat terkenal sejak bangkitnya Kapitalisme pada abad 17, saat Inggris mencapai era keemasan bersamaan dengan era Revolusi Industri. Individualisme dianggap unik karena sebenarnya istilah ini sudah tertanam pada bagian terdalam dari pikiran bawah sadar manusia, karenanya dapat dikatakan bahwa setiap manusia mempunyai kecenderungan menjadi seorang individualis. Kita sering mengartikannya sebagai egoisme. Kebangkitan individualisme juga mempengaruhi beberapa karya sastra terbaik pada saat itu, seperti Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, dan Robinson Crusoe. Setiap novel tersebut memuat pengaruh individualisme yang kuat. Melihat fakta semacam ini, penulis merasa terdorong untuk mengetahui lebih banyak tentang efek dari individualism pada karya-karya sastra tersebut, dan membuat penelitian dari salah satu judul buku-buku tersebut, yaitu Robinson Crusoe.

  Dari hasil penelitian tersebut, penulis akhirnya merumuskan tujuan pembuatan tugas ini, yaitu (1) menemukan bagaimanakah tokoh yang bernama Robinson Crusoe itu dideskripsikan oleh pengarangnya, dan (2) mendefinisikan individualisme dari setiap karakteristik dari tokoh utama.

  Dalam membuat penelitian ini, diambillah beberapa langkah: Yang pertama adalah membaca dan memahami novel yang dipelajari dengan seksama. Langkah selanjutnya adalah menentukan topik. Kemudian, batasan masalah dirumuskan setelah topik didapat. Setelah itu, penulis mulai menganalisis masalah dengan menggunakan teori-teori dan sumber-sumber yang memadai.

  Setelah mempelajari novel Robinson Crusoe dengan seksama, penulis menemukan bahwa terdapat tiga karakteristik yang menonjol dari karakter utama, dan hal ini menjawab permasalahan yang pertama. Sedangkan untuk permasalahan yang keduan penulis mendapatkan penemuan yang cukup memadai bahwa terdapat motif individualisme yang kuat pada setiap karakteristik dari tokoh utama, dan setiap motif mengarah pada satu sebab utama: ego dominan yang tertanam dalam-dalam pada pikiran bawah sadar sang tokoh utama, dan dapat dikatakan bahwa ego dan individualisme terkait erat satu sama lain. Penulis juga dapat membuktikan bahwa semua karakteristik utama dari sang tokoh—yang dipelajari penulis—adalah hasil dari keinginan yang kuat dari ego yang dominan. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study None of us know the exact time when individualism—in this case, the accurate description of individualism—truly manifests in human civilization. Many historians said that it has emerged so deeply in every aspect of human life

  so that we claimed it to be the inseparable part of human life. Some even believed that individualism emerged in this world at the same time when Adam and Eve were banished from the heaven by God. So those statements imply in the other words, that the spirit of individualism has existed since the beginning of human civilization.

  According to Ian Watts(1996) in his book Myth of Modern Individualism, the own terms of individualism actually derived from Latin individuus, meaning

  

undivided or undividable. Then it gained the complete definition when the Oxford

  dictionary records its first use in 1835. There, the Oxford dictionary defined individualism as: “self-centered feeling or conduct as a principle, … free and individual action or thought, egoism.” Because being individual is a characteristic of human being, then Oxford dictionary added that “it is a very personal and individual thing.” The meaning of individualism only changed a bit after 200 years, regardless of change in meaning that affected some of the English words. In its updated version(2008), Oxford dictionary defined individualism as: “1) The feeling or behavior of somebody who likes to do things their own way, regardless

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  of what people do; and 2) The theory that favors complete freedom for action and belief for each individual person rather than state control.” But to be more specific about this term, Watts himself stated:

  Many psychological definitions of the term “individualism” equate it with egoism, with a single individual’s inward independence of other people or institutions. … But individualism was not originally or primarily a psychological term; it was and is essentially a social description; if people are aware of being individualists, it must be because the concept is familiar and established in their society. (Myths of Modern Individualism, 235)

  If we observe the description of what individualism is—as stated above by Watts—we may say in our own words that it is a kind of human characteristic that is deeply emerged in the subconscious part of human mind, as a product of society’s strong mindset, so that it becomes the tendency—our own tendency—to become very individual, in contrary to the fact that human is a social creature. We sometimes tend to be more individualistic than the others in a situation where we compete in search of something that can lift our own egos up, such as the need of being popular, different than the others, more superb, and this usually leads to the rise of our own pride—in which it could separate human being from one another—remembering that we cannot truly live in aloneness.

  So strong was the individualist spirits in the medieval era—it was the impact of Renaissance and particularly the rise of the Protestants, who often accused as the main cause of the rise of individualism—so that it forced the European kingdoms—led by the Holy Roman Catholic Church—to create what the society called ‘the counter-individualism’, in which it considered that every individualist must be brought into eternal damnation because of its boastful and rude manner against the Catholic Church’s will. Such notion of being individual

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  had also been reflected in the many great masterpieces created by famous artist at that time, such as Faust, Don Quixote, and Don Juan—in which all of them have the very similarities from the writers’ own point of view towards the individualism. In Faust, doctor Faust was sent to hell because of his agreement with the Devil. Similarly, the arrogant Don Juan died tragically in the hand of the Living Statue, while Don Quixote died in regret—although he had received forgiveness from the church—of the failure of his quest.

  Different from its three predecessors, Robinson Crusoe practices individualism in a more ‘civilized’ manner than those three masterpieces. While the writers of Faust, Don Quixote, and Don Juan regarded individualism as something unpleasant, the writer of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, regarded individualism as something important; the moving force that could control the desire of Crusoe—the main character—of pursuing happiness, the force that could make Crusoe survived his twenty seven years in an uninhabited island. Ian Watts in his book implicitly stated the difference of the society’s viewpoint towards individualism in Britain and in Europe in these passages:

  We cannot but wonder whether these experiences conditioned their(the authors) confirmation of the strong punitive tendencies of the Counter- Reformation, exemplified so starkly in the death and damnation of Don Juan, the orthodox Christian death of Don Quixote, and the terrible fate of doctor Faustus. The final emblematic punishment of three protagonist can be seen as the unpalatable lesson which the Counter-Reformation attempted to teach to the individualism of the Renaissance. (Myths of Modern

  Individualism , 137)

  The passage above explained that the individualism movement in the renaissance era in Europe was forbidden by the Church at that time, and it was represented in the tragic death of the three main character of the book Faust, Don

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Quixote, and Don Juan—all of them represent the individualism in the renaissance

  era. The different reaction on individualism instead was shown in England. This is shown in the next passage: Crusoe, as created by Defoe, is not only a tribute to the basis of the individualism in the Puritan psychology, or in the ethos of developing capitalism; he is also a reflection of the virtues and vices of the English character. As James Joyce wrote in his 1912 lecture on Defoe: “The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence; the unconscious cruelty; the persistence; the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy; the practical, well-balanced religiousness; the calculating taciturnity.” (Myths of Modern Individualism, 171)

  Here we can see the contradiction of the viewpoint towards individualism in Europe and in Britain, in which on one side Europe—mostly dominated by Roman Catholic countries—tried to suppress the rise of individualism, while on the other side, Britain—the country that had lost its bound from the influence of the Roman Catholic Church—used individualism as its expression to reach glory, until eventually they reached the great success on making Britain the wealthiest country in the world; it was all because the spirit of individualism.

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  Moreover, the rise of Capitalism at the end of 17 century created a vast space for individualism to grow, because individualism is the basic principle of Capitalism and they support each other. Robinson Crusoe, as a result of this massive individualism movement in Britain then received a great public applause because of its strength of the story. It really depicted individualism as the way it was in the characteristic of Crusoe, the main character. So it is quite fair to see that Crusoe was described by Defoe as a man who always sees the other people based on the economic use on him—as he lived in the era where Capitalism rose rapidly. We may say that the attitudes of Crusoe both represent the individualism

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  and Capitalism spirits on the eighteenth century—which depended explicitly on the participation of an individual in a newly competitive and credit-based marketplace. This can be shown—as we read carefully along the story—in his solitary state on the island and his limited relationships with others including his own family, that obviously reflect the nature of individualism, which of course, emphasizes individual self-interest. Because it really put the individual’s interest above anything else, individualism—which in this thesis is based on the psychology theory—tended to diminish the importance of personal as well as group relationships.

  This phenomenon—individualism that is reflected in the characteristics of Crusoe—is the main reason that interests the writer to study this topic. The writer considered the phenomenon of Robinson Crusoe as an interesting thing to be studied because what we called ‘the characteristics of Robinson Crusoe’ is often found in the individual life of the nowadays society. As we may know, the individuals in today’s society—especially in metropolis cities—are usually emphasize individual self-interest—the thing that we always see in Crusoe. Even the rich companies also see the other people based on the economic use only. They seldom pay attention to the need of the other people—especially the working class. Instead, they exploit these people—what usually cause social barrier. In conclusion, what interests the writer to study further about Robinson Crusoe is the resemblance between Crusoe and today’s individual life.

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   Problem Formulation

  1. How are the characteristics of Crusoe described?

  2. In what way is individualism reflected through the characteristics of Robinson Crusoe? B.

   Objectives of the Study

  Basically the objectives of this study can be divided into two parts. The first objective of the study is to find out how the character of Robinson Crusoe was described. The second objective of this study is to define and explain the individualism motives in each characteristic of Robinson Crusoe.

C. Definition of Terms

  According to the Oxford English Dictionary 2008 edition, individualism is: “1) The feeling or behavior of somebody who likes to do things their own way, regardless of what people do; and 2) The theory that favors complete freedom for action and belief for each individual person rather than state control.”(Oxford 2008)

  Individualism actually derived from Latin individuus, meaning undivided or undividable. Moreover, Ian Watts stated in his book Myths of Modern

  

Individualism that “many psychological definitions of the term “individualism”

  equate it with egoism, with a single individual’s inward independence of other people or institutions. (p. 235)”

   

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CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies Robinson Crusoe is considered as one of the greatest novels ever made. The fame of Crusoe, the main character, can be compared with the fame of Lemuel Gulliver, as well as Odysseus, Don Quixote, Falstaff, and the rest of

  ‘immortal’ masterpiece. Those main characters in the novels mentioned previously have their own uniqueness that made them widely famous. Similar with those ‘immortal’ stories, Robinson Crusoe also has its own strong chemistry that made this novel can be put in the list of the greatest novels ever made.

  As we know that the main idea of Crusoe’s life experience was taken from the life experience of Alexander Selcraig or Selkirk, a sailor from Fife in Scotland, in which he decided to be put ashore on the island of Juan Fernandez, and there he lived all alone for four and a half years. Guy N. Pocock on the introduction of the book said that although people knew where the writer—Daniel Defoe—got the raw idea, but when the human creativity is put upon it, a miracle happens and one can say no more than that.

  This, then, is the nucleus—the slight account of the doings of Alexander Selkirk on Juan Fernandez—which inspired the immortal adventures of Robinson Crusoe on an island in Carribean Sea. (Robinson Crusoe, ix)

  Daniel Defoe’s ability of writing such a great story did not come up instantly. His incredible writing ability was gained because Defoe was previously a journalist and pamphleteer. Dr. E. Van de Laar in his book An Approach to

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English Literature said that although he had no chance of university education, he

became a man of wide learning, speaking six and reading even more languages.

  As a pamphleteer, Defoe’s pamphlet style was very critical, and he knew the affairs of the Aristocratic lords better than anyone did. As a result, his pamphlets were enormously influencing the public in the days when pamphlets took the place of the news nowadays. Van De Laar also stated that Defoe had what the modern journalist called ‘a true journalist intuition’.

  Defoe was a journalist and he had a good luck to live in an age the cultural level of which was very high. He could write so fast and well because he used the pure contemporary idiom—a sign of high cultural level—and because he was kind of genius and spoke beeter than most, i.e. used better speech, he wrote better than most. (An Approach to English Literature, 179) As a journalist, he was clever on arranging a good and interesting article.

  His idea led to the periodical essay that appears daily in newspapers. It was Defoe’s long article which led directly to the leading article of our own times. He also invented personal interview and gossip article in newspapers. Even before he wrote novels, he had written more than two hundred treatises, pamphlets, and booklets on all sorts of subjects.

  It was Defoe who actually invented novel because the previous stories created before his novels are characterized by their extreme unreality, although many of them show great interest in the affairs of everyday life and in human nature. The writers made little or no attempt at creating characters based on everyday life events. So we can say that the writers before Defoe wrote stories that cannot be accepted into logic—of the people at that time—because of the unreal content. Even some literature critics agreed that Defoe was the father of all

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  novelists. Defoe’s novels—Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and the rest are brilliant autobiographical adventure stories—his books are simply marvelous example of the adventure story told by oneself.

  Generally called novel-by-accident—the novel that contains accident story, the strength of Robinson Crusoe lies in the solitary life of Crusoe, the main character. How he faced his loneliness is the strongest chemistry that made Crusoe

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  cannot be easily forgotten. Moreover, it is beyond our mind that a man from 17 century could make the incredible details as well as nowadays novelist.

  The main reason behind the great success of the first book of Robinson

  

Crusoe —entitled The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson

Crusoe —is that Defoe had successfully made the readers feel that the life of

  Robinson Crusoe is being experienced by the readers as they read every scene in the novel. Defoe had put every scene in detail, so that the readers could imagine how to live as Robinson Crusoe himself. The very exactness of the detail is the clue to Defoe’s method of creating the illusion of reality. At the time we can follow what he had experienced from day to day, month to month, and year to year. Van de Laar added that the point that made Crusoe’s fame widely spread through England is that Defoe brilliantly managed to create the illusion of reality upon the life of Robinson Crusoe, something that never been done by the writers at that era.

  Defoe created the illusion by using a mass of circumstantial of a kind of no one …would take the trouble to invent. The whole thing is certainly fantastic and incredible enough. …many details appear too trivial for anyone to have invented them, while others seem inexplicable unless as a result of private experience. (An Approach to English Literature, 179)

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  To convince the reader that what Crusoe had experienced—stranded on an island alone for 28 years, 2 months and 19 days—was true, Defoe even released the third book of Robinson Crusoe, titled Serious Reflections. In this book, Defoe managed to create such a condition as if it was Crusoe himself who wrote the reflections. The book contained several reflections from Crusoe’s adventures supposed to be written by Crusoe, and it put more emphasis on the part in which Crusoe was stranded in an uninhabited island. In his book Myth of Modern

  

Individualism, Ian Watt said that Defoe seemed to put some unbelievable attitude

  towards the reader’s perception, because he persisted in convincing the readers that the event was really happened, although most readers have already known that Robinson Crusoe is purely fiction.

  And what is the point of asserting that various part of the tale—the parrot, Man Friday and so on—are all “literary true”(III, xi) when the writer also concedes the important qualification that every “Circumstance” in the imaginary story has its just allusion to the “real event”. (Myth of Modern

  Individualism, 149)

  Regarding the ambiguity that was mentioned above, the writer decided that

  

Robinson Crusoe is chosen to be the main subject of this study because the writer

  was interested to study more about the character of Robinson Crusoe. The great chemistry that was brilliantly put by Daniel Defoe in his main character and the details about what happened to him becomes the main attraction to the writer’s interest.

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   Review of Related Theory 1. Theory of Character and Characterization

  Van de Laar in An Approach to English Literature, stated that a character is the re-creation of human life that firstly comes up from the novelist’s mind. In the other words, the novelist does not take his character straight from life. The human beings s/he has observed in actual life first pass through the novelist’s mind, then the imagination sets to work on them and re-creates them imaginatively. As a result, the characters are never exact replicas of the actual human beings.

  Because a novelist re-creates a person imaginatively, there may be happen that two novelists who are ‘working on’ the same living person produce two quite different characters. So little of the original has been left, so much other material added, that one cannot speak a portrait. On the other hand, it is not totally true when a novelist says that a character is truly a fiction. A novelist often builds his/her character out of elements s/he has taken from various persons and it is his/her problem to make this character real.

  Another opinion about what character is was stated by M.H. Abrams in his book A Glossary of Literary Terms. There, he described a character as the person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities that are expressed in what they say—the dialogue—and by what they do—the action. A character may remain essentially ‘stable’, or unchanged in outlook and

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  disposition, from beginning to end of a work, or may undergo radical change, either through a gradual process of motivation and development.

  In defining the ‘stability’ of a character, E.M. Forster in Aspect of the

  

Novel categorized two kinds of character. The first is called flat character, that is

  when a character is built around ‘a single idea or quality’, and is presented without much individualizing detail, and therefore can be fairly adequately described in a single phrase or sentence. The second is called round character, that is when a character is complex in temperament and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity. Such as character therefore is as difficult to describe with any adequacy as a person in real life, and like real persons, is capable of surprising us.

  Similar with what E.M. Forster defined, Van de Laar also stated that Character in a novel should not be static. It means that there must be development, because we have already knew that a static character—the character who does not experience any significant characteristic change from the beginning until the end of the story—sometimes gives a kind of ‘monotonous’ atmosphere in a story.

  While the plot, the story, goes forward, the character should go forward too and vice versa. Action and incident spring out of character and, having occurred, they change it, so that at the end of a novel a character should have changed, have developed, and. should be different from what it was at the beginning of the novel.

  While in the first sentence it is stated that character is the re-creation of human life by observing the real life and the human beings inside—and finally it results as imaginary persons, the process of re-creating it, so that they exist for the reader as lifelike is called characterization. Basically there are three methods of

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  characterization. The first method is the explicit presentation by the author of the character through direct exposition, either in an introductory block or more often piecemeal throughout the work, illustrated by action. The second method is the presentation of the character in action, with little or no explicit comment by the author, in the expectation that the reader will be able to deduce the attributes of the actor from the actions. And then the final method is the representation from within the character, without comment on the character by the author, of the impact of actions and emotions on the character’s inner self, with the expectation that the reader will come to a clear understanding of the attributes of the character.

  Additionally, Jonathan Culler in his book Introduction to Literature stated that there are two main methods character presentation in the novel. The first is called typification method. This method is used in order to show the readers the personified vices, virtues, or philosophical and religious positions. Then the second method is called individualization method, which is divided into two aspect: the first is the explanatory characterization or telling, which describes a person through the narrator—the character is represented through the filter of a selective and judging narrator; and the second is the dramatic characterization or showing, which creates the impression on the reader that he or she is able to perceive the acting figures without any intervening agency, as if witnessing dramatic performance—in the other words, the author let the readers to judge the character he or she creates by their own value. In the novel Robinson Crusoe, the author used the dramatic characterization method to describe the character of Crusoe. So, it is to say that the theory of Characterization is the most suitable

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  theory that is going to be used to explore the traits of the main character of the novel studied.

2. Individualism

  The Oxford Dictionary (2008) describes the word individualism as: “The feeling or behavior of somebody who likes to do things their own way, regardless of what people do.” We all know the fact that human beings are both social and individual being, and each of those two basic characteristics cannot be separated each other. Yet, there is tendency in each one of us to be more individualistic than the others—in fact, so strong the individual tendency in some of us, so that it tends to control and even overcome our characteristic of being social. In the other words, some of us—who are considered to be more ‘individualistic’ than the others—use the ability of being social for the individual purpose only. That example showed us that our tendency of being individual has deeply planted upon the very essence of every human being. Thus, the statement that “individualism emerged in this world at the same time when Adam and Eve were banished from the heaven by God” could be considered right.

  But from the history point of view, the word ‘individualism’ gained its essence meaning after the birth of the Protestants in the Middle ages, along with the rise of Renaissance era. In his book Myth of Modern Individualism, Ian Watts stated that individualists was a social description, because this concept was familiar and very well-established in the society—seeing the fact that people are aware of being individualist. So it was acceptable that it is a social description, since the Protestants’ teachings contains the very root of individualism—as we

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  know that the Protestants were rapidly grew after they declared to separate from the Roman Catholic Church, and as the result, they became what the people said—the social religion. Louis Dumont, in his essay Essais sur I'individualisme:

  

Une perspective anthropologique sur Videologie modern, stated that the

  institutionalization of individualism was based on the Christian belief, and it was developed from the general idea of the society in which created from the union of all believers, the union in which the individuals are totally free and autonomous. Later, he added that individualism was developed by the Reformation and the Calvinists—so; it was “a phenomenon of Western world”.

  After individualism became institutionalized, then it gained its complete description. After the Oxford Dictionary recorded the use of the word

  

individualism in 1835, there it defined individualism in its early use as: "self-

  centered feeling or conduct as a principle; free and independent individual action or thought; egoism." The more precise definition came up after Alexis de Tocqueville, quoted by Ian Watts, defined individualism in his own words in his book On Democracy in America, as:

  Individualism is a novel expression, to which a novel idea has given birth.

  Our fathers were only acquainted with egoisme (selfishness). Selfishness is a passionate and exaggerated love of self, which leads a man to connect everything with himself and to prefer himself to everything in the world. Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows and to draw apart with his family and his friends.

  This description is the most accurate description to describe the nature of individualism, because it precisely defined the phenomenon of individualists nowadays, which tends to use their ego to control the environment around us. This

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  description is also considered the best description to examine the characteristics of Crusoe in the novel Robinson Crusoe. An interesting ethos of the individualist people was stated by the former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, as quoted by Anthony Elliot and Charles Lemert in the book The New Individualist page 3, said that “There is no society, only individuals and families.”

  That statement of Margaret Thatcher really shows us that the spirit of individualism has influenced strongly most of the society especially nowadays, where people are given total freedom by the social system to choose their own path to build their happy life, and expressing their own innermost desire. This then, is so relevant with what is stated next by Anthony Elliot:

  In the so-called do-it-yourself society, we are now all entrepreneurs of our own lives. What is unmistakable about the rise of individualist culture, in which constant risk-taking and obsessive preoccupation with flexibility rules, is that individuals must continually strive to be more efficient, faster, leaner, inventive and self-actualizing than they were previously—not sporadically, but day-in and day-out. (The New Individualism, p.3)

3. Psychology Theory

  The psychology theory is the essential elements needed when we are about to analyze the trait of the main character, because this theory deals mostly with the psychological aspect of the main character studied. There are lots of the psychological theories and theoreticians, but what we are going to apply to analyze the main character is the famous theory stated by famous psychologist Sigmund Freud that is widely known as the theory of psychoanalysis—it was named psychoanalysis because it analyzes the human psyche or it is to say our innermost thoughts thoroughly and completely.

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  In psychoanalysis study, human psyche becomes the main object of the study. Before Freud presented this theory publicly, there was rarely—or even none at all—any kind of modern knowledge that analyze the human psyche as complete as what Freud had presented. Because of his breakthrough findings about human psyche phenomenon, Freud then called as ‘the father of Psychoanalysis’. Mainly in psychoanalysis, Freud divided human psyche into three aspects. The first aspect is called id, or human basic instinct. Basically, human id has no difference with the basic animal instinct, because they shared same needs, such as the need to eat, the need to mate, the need to survive, etc.